


circle's end.

by outpastthemoat



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Hallucinations, M/M, Mindwipe, Naomi as a hallucination, Prayer, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-25
Updated: 2013-02-25
Packaged: 2017-12-03 15:06:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/699557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outpastthemoat/pseuds/outpastthemoat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If only, he thinks, if only he could understand why these things matter so: the narrow silk of a blue tie, or steady blue eyes that don’t look away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	circle's end.

If only, he thinks, if only he could understand why these things matter so: the narrow silk of a blue tie, or steady blue eyes that don’t look away.

(thank you for everything)

_you skim your hands across the surface of the water until your fingers grow numb from the cold._

_you return to these memories often; when blood glistens in the corner of your eye, you come here to sit by the water’s edge, and since he can no longer recall your face, you’ll remember for him._

He takes his brother’s hand, once, just to try out how it feels.

His brother looks at him oddly as he laces their hands together, palms flat against each other, fingers aligned end to end.  

It’s all wrong, he thinks, wrong because his brother’s hands are too rough, and his fingers are too long, and his nails are gently curved at the tips rather than cleanly squared off; wrong because of the ragged half-circle scar between his thumb and forefinger that shouldn’t be there at all.

The hand he remembers was pristine, a blank slate, with no real softness about it; hard as marble.

“What are you doing?” his brother asks, and he lets go; this hand is far too warm, when it ought to be cold.

(we can do it again)

_he takes your hand and drags you along, keeping you by his side, and he’ll never remember the look in his eyes when you let go._

_you do: you wonder if this is a hell of your own making._

(every night)

He talks to himself; too much, or so his brother says. So he waits until he’s alone before emptying out the space between his thoughts and memories.  

He rambles slowly when he’s alone behind the steering wheel, and he says things like _I know it sounds crazy but I think something important’s gone for good_ and Baby never tells him he’s wrong about that.  

He remembers sleeping on his side, but he doesn’t sleep like that anymore.  

Flat on his back is how he spends his nights, counting the cracks and water stains in each motel ceiling and directing his thoughts to the jagged patterns of crumbling plaster, following the stark relief of the patterns and tracing the lines of a blade, a crack of lightening, the profile of a sharp straight nose.

The ceiling fan beats back the stifling heat, the uneven blades making a noise that sounds like wingbeats, and he wonders why he wonders if angels ever sleep.

He wonders why he feels so alone in solitude, whenever there’s no one’s watching.

_he takes your hand and doesn’t let go._

He sings to himself, in the shower, in the car: the silence is too much like an unanswered question.  

He sings _there’s still time to change the road you’re on_ _,_ and he sings _there’s a candle burning in the world tonight, just slippin’ through the cracks_ _._  

_he takes your hand._

(I’m perfectly sane)

I’m going crazy, he thinks, and he keeps it to himself: what else do you do with a lifetime of memories, when the numbers don’t quite add up?

He stumbles out of bed at half-past two and opens up the trunk, searching, but there’s nothing there but guns, and old wooden rosaries, and half-empty bags of salt.  

_he takes your hand, and he lets go._

He looks in the mirror: he sees his own face, expected: the harsh set of his jaw, the hard glint in his eyes, the soft corners around the edges of his mouth slowly cracking down the seams.

He sees another pair of eyes (unexpected): soft in the shadows, lost and forlorn and desperately searching, and he wheels around in the empty bathroom.

_you see his reflection in the water (he will never remember to look for you: this is all you have to hold faith in.)_

White linen sheets flap on a laundry line; dusty wingbeats from a flock of distant doves.

(I ran away.)

 _when she says_ kill them _, he will do it._

_this he knows: that they will watch as he plunges a sword through their hearts, they will watch without surprise: just another monster, this strange creature who will finally do them in, and when their souls arrive in heaven they might remember the blue-eyed monster that slayed them, or they might not._

He sings along to the radio: _but of all these friends and lovers, there is no one compares with you._

He finds a thick silver band in the glove box; puts it on and waits to feel whole once more again.

(…feel that?)

He takes it off again.

_you take his hand, and he lets you._

(we can do it again)

He drags the edge of his blade through the soft skin at the base of a throat, and looks for the next monster to kill.

(the bloody way)

_he holds your hand, and you touch his head with your fingers._

_he looks at you with astonishment, and anger. he is made of fury and righteousness and his strength astounds you, as always._

_he stands no chance against your will._

_he lets go._ _you turn around: you are gone before you can see the emptiness in his eyes where his faith used to reside._

(I had to)

He lets his scruff take on the beginnings of a beard, drags his hand across his cheek when his thoughts grow dim.  The stubble feels right; the skin underneath feels wrong.

He shaves it off.

_by the water, you consider your blade: its narrow point, how it flashes in the dappled light, and you know this is the only sure way to redeem yourself to a man who will never remember your crimes._

(hold on)

_she speaks to you, somewhere in the stark brightness of the room on the other side of your eyes._

_this is heaven’s will, she tells you._

He finally says it out loud, his brother asleep on the other side of the room.  He breathes thee words into his pillow, the words muffled by the down feathers.

_“I miss you.”_

(we can do it again)

y _ou pull the blade away before it pierces your skin._

_no one cares that you’re broken, you think with grateful relief, but all the same you will clean up your mess tomorrow, perhaps; there will always be another day_

He sleeps easier that night.

_he takes your hand._

He doesn’t shave the next morning.  

_she holds you fast in a ring of burning light; you rail against her._

_there is no fighting her, you know, not this woman made of ice and brimstone combined._

this isn’t real, _she tells you._

 __ _you cling to her words; you dully take hold of the sword she holds out._

He puts on the ring.  

“Thought you’d gotten rid of that old thing ages ago,” his brother tells him.

He traces the edge of the ring with his fingertips, starting at a nick in the silver, rubbing the pad of his finger against the grove until he returns to the start.

(I got you.)

That night he opens the drawer of the nightstand, finds a Gideon bible: dusty, cracked, whole pages torn out and leering, vicious faces inked in the margins.  

He reads whole pages aloud; verses, lines, chapters, books.

_“Eternity resides in the heart of men.”_

_you pick up a flat, round stone and fling it across the water.  it settles at the bottom of the river, vanishing under the sand._

_you come here often._

“I never knew you were a faithful man,” his brother says, and he shrugs uneasily over the unfamiliar mantle of prayer.

“I believe in something,” he says, and his brother looks at him, curious.

“What?”

A lithograph of clasped hands adorns the cover of this bible.

“I don’t know,” he answers.

“Then why do you pray?” his brother asks.

“Because I want to remember.”

(we can do it again)

He closes the bible and whispers into its spine, eyes closed, the very image of a believer.  

_“I don’t know who you are”_

_he takes your hand._

_“but I know you’re out there”_

_he takes your hand._

kill him _, she hisses, but her eyes are sharp with pleasure._

_she smells of sulphur and and smoke: she’s hardly an angel, you think distantly, but then again neither are you._

(we can do it again)

_you run the blade across the flesh of your chest, and she smiles._

kill him _, she says, and you know what she means is_ destroy yourself _, because you break everything you touch._

_“and I love you.”_

do it, _she says, and you hesitate, the tip of the blade digging into your ribs._

(hold on)

_he takes your hand._

_“Hold on.”_

A man with dark hair, wild strands sticking up as though he’d just blown in from a hurricane, and it’s easy to see the love in his eyes.  He’ll do his best; he always has for you.

He’s wrong about this.

_he takes your hand, and you try to pull away._

keep him safe, _she says wisely._ you’ll get him killed.  

_she holds out the blade.  you take it from her hands._

(…want to take a shot at us, let ‘em)

You’ve never been able to let him go.

Good memories, and the bad: you know exactly where to go to find him, within which shadowed door his memory hides behind.  

(...call him what you want, just kill him now!)

You reach out and take his hand.

_he takes your hand and doesn’t let go._

_Hold on._

_you reach the circle’s end_

_…we can do it again._


End file.
